"Sitting on the sodden ground in handcuffs, surrounded by his captors, a lucid and relaxed Mr Naden said: 'Thank God it's over, I've had enough.' "

According to The Independent, "for nearly seven years ... Naden evaded police, hiding out in the steep, thickly-forested bush of northern New South Wales, living off the land and stealing food and weapons from rural properties."

The 38-year-old "former sheep shearer and abattoir worker" is accused of murdering a 24-year-old cousin, Kristy Scholes, in 2005. He's a suspect in an indecent assault on a 15-year-old girl. And last December he allegedly shot and wounded a police officer.

Tips and sightings, the Morning Herald says, led authorites to plant electronic bugs and/or motion detectors in 49 buildings. He was caught just after midnight Thursday (local time) about four hours after a motion detector signaled police that someone was in a remote cabin they had targeted.

As officers approached, Naden tried to flee. It was a police dog named Chuck that "locked its jaws onto Mr Naden's left leg and did not let go until handcuffs bound his wrists," the Morning Herald writes.